PHOTOS: The traumatised children of war-torn Syria

The traumatised children of war-torn Syria

Defining images of Syrian children living amid the ongoing conflict in their country. Syrian children have been shot at, tortured and raped during two years of unrest and civil war, the London-based international charity Save the Children said in a report released on Wednesday.

Two million children, it said, face malnutrition, disease and severe trauma, becoming innocent victims of a bloody conflict that has already claimed 70,000 lives.

Both government forces and rebels have been accused of targeting civilians and committing war crimes. Refugees say that President Bashar-al Assad's soldiers are directly targeting children.

In this photograph, a Syrian boy stands in front of a damaged armoured vehicle belonging to the Syrian army in a street in Homs.

The traumatised children of war-torn Syria

Um Jaafar, a woman fighter in the Free Syrian Army, sits with her husband Abu Jaafar, a Sawt al-Haq (Voice of Rights) battalion commander, and her daughter Faten at their home in Aleppo.

Um Jaafar was a women's hairdresser before the revolution and after being trained by her husband, she is now a member of a Sawt al-Haq battalion on the frontline of Aleppo's Sheikh Saeed neighbourhood.